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Surprise! Two of the main characters have just had a child! I bet you are surprised, since they didn't go through pregnancy or anything, might not even be dating, and the kid is already 14!

It must be the Kid from the Future here to Set Right What Once Went Wrong! A child the characters have yet to have has traveled back in time to save their parents for some reason. Great for pairing up characters who have yet to even show any interest in each other since now they must get together Because Destiny Says So. Also a way of working in a Distant Finale into the plot of what has already come along.

If the series involves a Love Triangle, or, worse yet, an Unwanted Harem, expect all hell to break loose as those involved try to figure out who the child's mother or father is.

Sometimes it is played to be a grandson or descendant of the characters, or it is the protagonist who travels back in time, being the son of the future.

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Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Rikka Iroha, Reika Kujo and Ichinose Saki from Mahou no Iroha meet their present father, Rikka Naoki. Two of them meet him probably because his future-self don't spend much time with them. And the another one, meet him for another reason.

Trunks from Dragon Ball. In his case, his parents might have had two scenes together at that point and his mother had been with a different guy for about ten years. Goku's reaction is shock and disbelief. Neither of his parents actually know who Future Trunks really is until after they've gotten together, as neither Goku nor Piccolo (who overheard Trunks telling Goku due to his superior hearing) said anything. Eventually, the present-day Trunks is born, and Future Trunks meets him(self). Hilarity ensues.

Inverted in Negima's sequel UQ Holder!. Touta ends up meeting and becoming friends with a younger version of his adoptive mother while training at Danna's palace.note She's actually a temporal echo caused by the dimension they're in existing outside the normal flow of time. Played straight for about five minutes at the end of the arc when he enters a literal window to her past.

Little Jumper: It features a high school student (Hiroki) who suddenly meets a girl (Chimari) who illegally time-traveled from the future to cure her ailing mother via genetic manipulation - and he is her (future) father. Two complications: 1) she hates her father (him), and 2) neither of them have any idea who her mother could (will?) be. A surprisingly widely agreed-on theory is that she could very well be her own future mother, which would effectively create both a Stable Time Loopand a decent amount of fan-discomfort. How it all concludes: Chimari isn't actually Hiroki's kid, she's the result of Ai-chan being a Truly Single Parent, via some Techno-Mystical Pregnancy involving time travel. The cause is likely the Time Jumper, but it could some other time travel method.

In Tenchi Muyo in Love, Tenchi Masaki himself goes back in time to rescue his parents from Kain.

Subverted in the second movie, Daughter of Darkness / Manatsu no Eve; Mayuka shows all the symptoms (and some of the characters just accept that she must be from the future, despite the bizarre (and scientifically impossible) means used to prevent Washu from identifying the mother through DNA analysis), but turns out to be an Artificial HumanLaser-Guided Tyke-Bomb.

Chibi-Usa (future daughter of Usagi and Mamoru) and Diana (future daughter of Luna and Artemis) from Sailor Moon. As a result, this trope is sometimes referred to as "pulling a Chibi-usa". This concept became so common to them that when Chibi-Chibi showed up they speculated on whether she was another one of these. The answer's no, but why is different between medium, in the 90s anime she's Galaxia's star seed and isn't from the future at all, in the manga she is from the future, but what relation she has to Sailor Moon is (and shall probably forever be) unknown.

Urusei Yatsura uses a variation of this in chapter 11. Ataru tries to avoid arriving late to school by using time travel, but he ends up 12 years in the future and meets up with his and Shinobu's son.

Nanami in Soul Link, the Half-Human Hybrid daughter of Nao and Shuuhei. As it turns out, she and she alone holds the key to defeating the Big Bad. Even though Nao and Shuuhei only had sex once (and both of them are still high school age), they have no problem taking responsibility as parents for Nanami, who apparently came into being even with Aries being a Building of Adventure.

An episode of Ojamajo Doremi's OAV had Doremi's granddaughter from the future travel to the present. note This, of course, raises the question of who Doremi hooks up with... and then, whose kid their kid hooks up with.

Nobita basically does Dane Cook's stand-up joke from above in an early '90s episode to his parents, who had just had him as a baby, except with less twisted intentions. But hey, might as well warn them their kid's going to grow up into a (ten-year-old) loser, right? Though of course he might've cursed himself this way...

Sewachi, Nobita's great-great-whatever grandson, is the one who sent Doraemon to his ancestor in the first place. He also spoiled all of Nobita's failure future. Nobita's fate would have been so bad his descendant didn't care of any effect he causes from screwing destiny, since he believes he can be born nevertheless.

Also, Shizuka's and Nobita's future son, Nobisuke in Nobita's son ran away from home episode.

Later, Doraemon brings Nobisuke's future son aka Nobita's future grandson to the present time in the same episode.

Aura of Mythic Quest is more an AI daughter from another dimension who suddenly introduces herself to her "father," but she plays about the same role in her parents' relationship.

NSFW Manga Yomeiro Choice has three (and counting, up to four and a cybernetic assistant/daughter!) daughters from the future, each trying to get the protagonist to impregnate her mother so she doesn't cease to exist. It ends with the protagonist choosing all of them. All of the future daughters not only still exist, they are now sisters.

In Steins;GateSuzuha is this to Daru, although neither know at first, as the kid in question has very little information to go on regarding the identity of their parents, since it would have to be a very carefully-guarded secret to prevent rival time-travelers from being able to target them.

Rin Kiryuin is the teenaged, time-traveling granddaughter of protagonist Asahi Kuromine, which she quickly proves by blabbing her secret to him despite being ordered not to do so. She doesn't tell anyone else, though, which results in her cute granddaughter-ly interactions with Asahi causing some confusion. Ironically, the only secret she can keep is the one that would solve most of Asahi's problems: the identity of his future wife. It's eventually all but outright stated that she's Asahi's granddaughter by Youko, her mother having been conceived by blood-drinking rather than sex.

70 chapters later, another kid from the future is introduced with MomochiYuka, although for a while her being from the future is just shown through obvious hints instead of outright revealed. Turns out she is the granddaughter of Shiho (friend of Asahi's girlfriend Youko).

Sgt. Frog: One episode has Fuyuki and the platoon dragged into the '80s, where Fuyuki meets a younger version of his mother, Aki.

Discussed during the "Fiesta for the Observers" arc, when a little girl (actually Natsuki after a witch turned her into a little girl and stole most of her memories) starts following Asagi around and seems to believe she's her mother. Asagi considers this trope, but dismisses it because the girl doesn't look enough like her or Kojou, the guy she has feelings for.

Played straight in the "Empire of the Dawn" arc, with the arrival of a girl strongly resembling Yukina but with Kojou's eyes named Reina. She also has vampiric abilities similar to Kojou's, and can summon a golden spear that resembles Yukina's. She reveals she was sent twenty years into the past in pursuit of a powerful artificially-created monster intent on retroactively destroying Itogami Island before it can become the titular sovereign nation. After helping the main cast defeat the monster, she returns to the future, but not before unambiguously stating that she's Yukina's daughter. Yukina and Kojou awkwardly try to act like this doesn't establish a Foregone Conclusion for their Unresolved Sexual Tension. After the credits, The Stinger reveals that this girl also has a half-sister, the daughter of Koujo and Asagi.

In Chinpui, Eri meets a time traveller who turns out to be the son she will someday have with Prince Lulealv. Twice, in fact - the second time she meets him, he's a baby.

In Mirai Shoujo Emomoshon, main character Hajime is visited by his future daughter, who has come back to the past to cause a breakup between Hajime and his future wife. Unfortunately, she has no idea who said future wife is.

In Hugtto! Pretty Cure, Hugtan / Hagumi, aka Cure Tomorrow, is the future Daughter of Hana Nono, who used up all of her power to travel to the past, reverting her back to a baby. This become a lot more tragic when it's revealed that she did it not only to stop George Cry from destroying the future, but to also save her mother from her own despair, which Word of God stated that it lead to her death. Despite this, Hana never finds out about her true origins beyond "She came from a Bad Future".

Rachel Summers (Phoenix/Marvel Girl) is this trope played absolutely straight and is probably the Trope Codifier (predating Chibi-Usa and Future Trunks, the most famous examples of the trope, by about a decade): she's the daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey in the "Days of Future Past" timeline's future, who goes back in time and joins various X-Teams.

Cable is a variation on this. He's the son of Scott Summers and Madeline Pryor (a clone of Jean Grey). He was actually born in the present (now past), but was taken to the future by the Mother Askani (actually future-future Rachel, his half-sister/genetic full sister). No, not the future she came from, another further distant future. There he gets cloned and grows up, later coming back as Cable to a period not long after he was born (but before he was taken to the future). His clone Stryfe follows him back. Note that, briefly, Cable and baby Nathan existed concurrently but never interacted.

Nate Grey (a.k.a. X-Man) looks like this, but is not from the future: he's from the present of an alternate timeline, where he was genetically engineered from Scott and Jean's genetic material and given a Plot-Relevant Age-Up. He eventually wound up in the main timeline.

If you've followed all of this, you may have noticed that Scott Summers and Jean Grey effectively have had four children running around even though Jean was never pregnant. Three of those children are genetically identical, despite it being ludicrously implausible that the genetically engineered Nate Grey would end up with exactly the same DNA as Cable, who was conceived naturally in a different universe.

Other X-Men future Summers kids not tied to both of the above parents: Cyclops has a daughter with Emma Frost, in the form of X-Factor's Ruby Summers.

Also in X-Factor, it is revealed that Shatterstar is the son of Dazzler and Longshot who had been raised in the future of another dimension. This had been hinted at many times almost from the moment Shatterstar was introduced. Surprise, surprise! It's now confirmed that Shatterstar is Longshot's son, but also (due to time-travel whackery), that Shatterstar is Longshot's father!

Another alternate-universe twist on this trope from X-Continuity is Nocturne, Nightcrawler's daughter with the Scarlet Witch, of all people.

Minor case: Bishop of the X-Men is from the future, and turns out to be the grandson of minor character Gateway.

In Battle of the Atom, Future Kitty is really Mystique and Wolverine's future son Raze, a mutant who inherited both of his parents' powers.

For a non-X-Men example in the Marvel Universe, this has also happened in Fantastic Four with Valeria Von Doom, daughter of Sue Richards and Doctor Doom (or Reed Richards impersonating Doom, though she certainly thought Doom was her father). Like Rachel Summers, she's a creation of Chris Claremont, and they've even both used the Code Name "Marvel Girl" (though in all fairness, Rachel had yet to use that name at the time of Valeria's creation). Clearly, Claremont loves this trope.

In another Fantastic Four storyline, Reed and Sue's son Franklin Richards pulls a Cable, getting sent into the distant future and returning as the adult "Psi-Lord". Oddly enough, during the brief time that the adult Franklin was in the modern era, he never encountered Rachel Summers despite his "Days of Future Past" counterpart being her boyfriend.

Then, Hyperstorm came. Who is Hyperstorm? Child of Franklin Richards and Rachel Summers in the Days of the Future Past alternate future. Yes, The two families who did it most in the Marvel Universe are now mixed together! Unfortunately, he's a completely insane villain. He's also the reason the 616 version of his father is a kid again, having pulled a Ret-Gone on the adult version.

For that matter, Kang The Conqueror always claimed to be a descendant of Doctor Doom. It turns out he's actually a descendant of Reed's dad Nathaniel, making Reed his great-great-great-great-great-great-whatever uncle. Although now a recent Retcon seems to declare that that was only an alternate-universe version of Nathaniel!

Bart Allen (Impulse/Kid Flash II) was the Wally West's (The Flash III) cousin from the 30th Century—and the grandson of Barry Allen (The Flash II) who had spent a long time in the 30th Century before his death. Bart is also technically also the great-great-great (you know how this goes) grandson of the Eobard Thawne (The Reverse-Flash I) on his mother's side.

Jenny Ognats (XS) is Bart's cousin, and thus also Wally's cousin and Barry's granddaughter. She too was born in the 30th Century.

Iris West II, the (seemingly) third Kid Flash, is Wally's future daughter. She was introduced in the 90s, and eventually by the mid-00s Wally and his wife Linda had twins, one of whom was named Iris and would become the second Impulse.

In "Chain Lightning", Wally West, Jesse Quick, Jay Garrick, Max Mercury and Impulse are requried to travel through time recruiting the Flashes of various eras, and one of them is a man named Jace Allen, a descendant of Barry Allen's.

Owen Mercer (Captain Boomerang II), is Impulse's half-brother, conceived while the original Captain Boomerang, Digger Harkness, ended up in the 30th Century and lost his memory. Digger somehow ends up back in the present, but isn't aware of Owen's existence until Owen is already an adult. Owen is also the great-great-great (you know how this goes) grandson of Eobard Thawne.

Another case of the lead being the child is the current Booster Gold series, in which his distant ancestors are recurring characters. Booster explicitly references Marty McFly at one point.

In addition to this, Rip Hunter, who's playing mentor to Booster, has been revealed as Booster's son. The mother remains a mystery thus far. He deliberately keeps his parentage a secret so that other time travelers can't Ret-Gone him by targeting them.

In one Astro City plotline, several versions of Jack-In-The-Box's son from the future appear (The Box, The Jackson, and Jerome Johnson). They grew up without a father because, in their timelines, Jack-In-The-Box died before his son's birth. One turned out to be a bloodthirsty vigilante, another ended up totally insane, and the third, 'normal' one was clearly emotionally wounded. This convinces Jack-In-The-Box to hand off his identity to a younger protege and concentrate on his family.

The first version of Lara-Su to appear, also known by the alias "Jani-Ca", first showed up in the early 100's issues. She came from a Bad Future (a very bad future recently dubbed "Dark Mobius" by Word of God), and attempted to avert it by preventing Knuckles' assassination. Except, when she got back to her time, not only did she find out that she had gone back into the wrong timeline, but that her mother had lied to her to protect her - Knuckles hadn't died, he'd pulled a FaceHeel Turn and was responsible for that bad future.

The second version of Lara-Su was from the much nicer "Mobius: X Years Later" timeline. She was one of the few people not affected by the Cosmic Retcon and helped Future Sonic depose King Shadow, and a while after that became a member of the Future Freedom Fighters.note It should also be noted that this version of Lara-Su never went back in time - so she's not so much a Kid From The Future as she is a Future Kid.

And there's also Silver the Hedgehog, who continually makes trips from a ruined future trying to find the "Freedom Fighter Traitor" responsible for causing it. Unfortunately for him, he's wrong every time, and every trip to the past ends up changing the future (their present), and not for the better. Eventually, his mentor, Future Mammoth Mogul, sends him into the past and tells him to stay there until he's found the traitor. He ends up joining the Secret Freedom Fighters. But just when he's about to find the true traitor, the Cosmic Retcon occurs.

In Gold Digger, Brianna Digger's daughter Roquette came back in time to stop her mother from marrying the wrong person! ... only to discover Brianna was merely planning the wedding of some other person and Roquette's timeline was unthreatened. Oops?

Lord Chaos, the Big Bad of the Teen Titans storyline "Total Chaos" is a future version of Donna Troy's son, who travels back to the day she gives birth (he's pursuing the Team Titans who are attempting their equivalent of "killing Hitler as a baby").

In the Tammy comic Thursday's Child, Thursday Brown is tormented by a girl named Julie, then learns that Julie is her daughter from the (then-future) year 2000, who has come back to make her mother's life a misery to punish her for a car accident in which Julie ended up paralyzed.

The Kingdom Titans who show up in Titans are the possible future kids of the current titans, some of whom do become part of regular continuity after their births later on:

A plot twist over eight years in the making in Safe Havens: Maria, the time traveler and mother of Leonardo da Vinci, is Dave and Samantha's daughter from the future, and her time-jumping abilities were a direct result of Samantha being pregnant with her while in space. For bonus points, Maria was the ship's doctor, and actually delivered herself. Incidentally, this also makes Leonardo the Grandkid from the Future to Samantha and Dave.

Higher Learning: Subverted. Kaoru is a descendant of Shinji and Asuka came from the future, but he is not their child but their grandchild, and he is an adult.

The Second Try: Variant. Aki Ikari is Shinji and Asuka's future child and she gets sent back in time about a day before SEELE launches their attack on NERV. However, her parents were already aware of her existence, having been sent back in time themselves months earlier. Aki being sent back happens halfway through the story and is a major source of relief for the couple, who between their Peggy Sue exploits had been agonizing over her safety and wondering if she even still existed. Her character is explored further in the sequel Aki-chan's Life.

In the Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfic Tea With Destiny, Iroh travels to the Spirit World following the death of his son and intends to stay there forever. His son, however, doesn't think that's a good idea and takes him to visit with a very wise old man who turns out to be future!Zuko (Iroh isn't aware of this, as Zuko is currently ten years old in the real world). Future!Zuko advises Iroh to go back to the mortal world and be his mentor, because he's really going to need it.

Codename: Kids Next Door has inspired many fanfics that use this trope, such as this example. These fanfics tend to involve future KND Operatives meeting the present-day KND via time travel, or the present-day KND time-traveling and meeting future KND Operatives.

Hands by Andrew Joshua Talon has an unresolved Love Triangle between a human, Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle. In the Time-Travel Episode after those three agree that Stable Time Loops are useless and cause only problems they get back to discussing how to resolve their Love Triangle. Seconds later two half human hybrids colored like Twilight Sparkle AND Fluttershy respectively arrive via Time Travel to tell their parents to just get a move on. They are actually Princess Luna and Pinkie Pie who traveled back from later that day to prank them.

In The Chaotic Three, the time-displaced Rey (here Lukes daughter rather than Palpatines granddaughter) takes this role as she begins bonding with the young Anakin during the flight from Tatooine to Coruscant, although she doesnt tell him about their true relationship.

"Avengers: The Impossible Child" features a complicated variation of this when Clint finds a little girl outside his farm, with a piece of paper identifying the girl as Laura Fury Romanoff-Banner, DNA tests confirming that the girl is the daughter of Bruce Banner and Natasha Romanoff despite both being sterile. Eventually it is revealed that Laura comes from an alternate future where Bruce never became the Hulk (among other changes) which led to Earth being decimated by Thanos; the Banner and Coulson of that future came back in time to change history and make Earth better equipped to fight off Thanos, but retrieved Laura and sent her to the Bartons so that she would still exist.

Taaroko's Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8, Chapter 14 sees Buffy, Angel, Willow and Oz meet their children from the future when a time-travel spell intended to let Buffy and Angels children see their aunt backfires to send the four children from 2024 back to 2004; Angel spends time sparring with his teenage daughter Kathy, Buffy takes care of her ten-year-old son Liam, and Willow and Oz meet their twins Daniel and Tara Osborne, until Buffy and Willows future selves come back to retrieve them and erase their younger selves memories.

The Harry Potter fanfic Far From Home and All Alone uses this trope with Remus Lupin, his future son Teddy and Harry's future daughter Lily. The two are sent to the past while Teddy is supposed to be protecting Lily and instead get in the middle of some dark wizards' nefarious schemes. Remus does not learn Teddy is his son until the end though.

In Twist of Fate, the time-traveler Moses declares that Gunha Sogiita is Touma Kamijou and Misaki Shokuhou's son from the future who was brought into the present. The incredibly shocked and embarrassed Touma and Misaki suspect Moses was just messing with them, especially since Moses was snickering when he said it, but the incredibly gullible Gunha immediately believes it. Touma and Misaki are essentially forced to take responsibility for Gunha, even though they are roughly the same age, even going to a parent-teacher conference for him. It helps that they are much more mature than him. On the other hand, the girls in Touma's harem are not pleased because if Moses was telling the truth, this means Misaki won. Much later, Gunha somberly admits that he knew Moses was lying, but he went along with it because he liked Touma and Misaki and really wanted them to be his parents.

Suzaku is a variant of this trope in My Mirror, Sword and Shield as he's Cecile's adoptive son from the future. This is lampshaded by Lloyd who wonders how Suzaku could be her kid when he doesn't look like her. Suzaku deconstructs this as he decides not to help his biological parents. He acknowledges that he could meet his father and make sure he doesn't die and prevent his mother from becoming a neglectful drug addict but he much rather help his adoptive family.

Pony POV Series: Nightdrake Bannerette, a grown-up, alternate universe version of Spike, appears and saves Rarity and the Cutie Mark Crusaders from Abandon. Before he leaves, he asks the CMC to tell Spike not to give up on pursuing Rarity. When they tell him, Spike mistakenly believes Bannerette is his and Rarity's kid from the future and that this proves he and Rarity are destined to be together. The CMC attempt to explain that this is not the case, but give up and just let him think that.

In Flashback, Beast Boy and Raven's son goes back in time to help his parents with an alien invasion. In the end, he performs a Heroic Sacrifice to get rid of the aliens... and two years later, Raven gives birth to a girl.

In Surprise of Your Life Remus's son Teddy and Harry and Charlie Weasley's son Connor accidentally show up at Grimmauld Place during the summer after Harry's fourth year.

Several stories have an infant Harry Potter sent back to his parents while they were still students at Hogwarts. In a few of them, caring for him is what brings them together as a couple.

Oversaturated World: Dinky Doo is Ditzy's, sent back from the future by Ditzy's future self so Dinky can spend time with a version of her mother.

The Bridge: A future Flurry Heart, whom hasn't even been born yet in the setting, Empress Flurry Heart temporarily time travels using a spell taught to her by her aunt, Twilight Sparkle. While trying to avert a Bad Future, her method of Set Right What Once Went Wrong is less her direct actions and more arranging events to happen right.

Downplayed in Innocence And Experience, with Damian Wayne being flung into the past at a point in which he was a five-months-old infant. Batman is still thrown for a loop since Talia pretended she miscarried their unborn child.

At the start of the Miraculous Ladybug fanfic She's My Mom Marinette is visited by Louis, the child she'll have with Adrien... And the ones she'll have with Lila in another future, Emma and Gino (only Gino is adopted). The latter two are older than she is in the story. As it's a companion story to the harem story A Very Oblivious Marinette, those are only the first three.

Very common in Star Wars Rebels fanfictions written after the series finale. These tend to feature Kanan interacting with his son Jacen. The prevalence of this trope in SWR fanfiction is due to the fact that they never met due to the former's death.

Also very common in Star vs. the Forces of Evil fanworks following the second season, with many of these fics usually having groups of kids from various alternate timelines coming back at the same time for a number of reasons, with these children being ones that Marco had with different female characters. Within the fanbase, this was popularized by Ship War AU, where the daughter of Star and the son of Jackie come back to make sure their father gets with the correct girl, securing their timeline. The same creator also brought together all the community's Original Characters to form the SVTFOE Metaverse.

Mar'i Grayson is a Teen Titans fanfic where Robin and Starfire's daughter goes back 20 years into the past to prevent a war from happening.

A variant occurs in the Ranma ½ fanfic After the Fall of Giants - the child in question happens to be Mousse's nephew and Ranma's adopted brother, having come back to prevent the events that lead to the Amazons being wiped out in his timeline.

Mom? Dad? Chaos (set in the Maribat AU) has this as its main premise: the children of Marinette and Damian, Chloé and Kagami, and Adrien and Jon accidentally go through a time portal and end up smack-dab in the middle of Mme. Bustier's class.

Princess Celestia: The Changeling Queen: The third main story in the series (not counting prequels), Equestria's Changeling Princesses and the Kinsbane, plays with this. One, the "kids" are full-grown adults; two, they went back in time by accident (they intended to make a scrying spell of sorts but ended up time-traveling because of a built-in failsafe); and three, they're mainly interacting with their grandparents, since their mother is just four years old at the time they landed and they won't be conceived for well over a thousand years from then.

In Meet the Robinsons, Wilbur is Lewis' son. This explains his reluctance to help Lewis go back in time and meet his birth mother—Wilbur knows that Lewis is destined to be Happily Adopted if he just holds out a little longer. Interestingly, the Love Interest winds up introduced at the end of the time-travel adventure, but still with the clear indication that the two will hook up eventually.

Mirai of the Future revolves around a young boy named Kun encountering an older version of his baby sister who came from the future to give him advice concerning his life and to travel with him to the past and future.

Back to the Future Part III: Marty travels even further into the past and meets his ancestors, thus making him a Great-Great-Grandkid from the Future.

The 2011 film, Enter Nowhere has a child from the future, grandchild from the future, and a great-grandchild from the future. Tom is Jody's son, Jody is Samantha's daughter, and Samantha is Hans's daughter.

The Terminator is a variation of this - the kid from the future doesn't actually show up in the film but he sends his father to the past in order to rescue his mother and, in the process, impregnate her with him.

Literature

In Bones Of The Earth, some time-traveling paleontologists get stranded in the Mesozoic for months. Once rescued, they're welcomed home by hordes of media and friends from many different times ... including an adult version of the baby one of their group gave birth to in the Mesozoic. He doesn't save them, but he gets to hold his infant self.

In The Divine Comedy, Dante speaks to his great-great-grandfather in the Mars sphere of Heaven. Contrary to most uses of the trope, it is Dante's ancestor who "predicts" Dante's future, namely, his exile from Florence.

Done weirdly in the Doctor WhoEighth Doctor Adventures novel Father Time. Neither the Doctor nor his Kid from the Future, Miranda, knows that he's her biological father, despite the fact they look decidedly alike (when she grows up, they're even about the same height) and she's the only other member of his species he remembers meeting. He adopts her and raises her like his own, not realizing that she actually is. (Confusing things further, if Miranda's father is a future version of the Doctor [the books are only implicit on this point], then it's almost certainly a future that never actually happened; and was unlikely to happen even by the time of Father Time).

This trope is central to The Glass Ruins, where the main character is sent into the past to prevent his mother who is pregnant with him from having an abortion.

Obsidian Mirror: Sarah is Venn's great-granddaughter from the 2100s, having sent herself back in time to escape from a Bad Future.

Alba from The Time Traveler's Wife (approximately—she appears after Henry and Clare are married but when they think they can't have kids, and Henry comes forward in time to see her about as much as she goes back to see him). In one of the final scenes in the book, Alba visits Henry before he meets Clare. Even after she says she was looking for her father but was apparently too early, he still fails to understand who she is.

Live-Action TV

Deke Shaw, future grandson of Fitz-Simmons from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Bit of a variation, as he's first met when the team time travels to the future, then he travels back with them (by accident) to the present.

Wyatt and Chris, the children of Piper and Leo. Future Wyatt only shows up after Baby Wyatt has been born, but Future Chris preceded Baby Chris and his identity was an object of speculation.

Interestingly, the girls undergo Mental Time Travel in a season two episode, and Piper meets her young daughter Melinda; a few years later, she and Leo get pregnant specifically because it's about time for Melinda to be conceived, and were surprised when Wyatt was born instead. Of course, as Piper noted, she met Melinda in a Bad Future that they managed to avert, so clearly this wasn't an ironclad destiny anyway. Melinda finally made her main-timeline appearance in the final episode's "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue.

Chris almost causes himself not to exist the same way Marty McFly did, by breaking up his parents. Except he did it on purpose, apparently not ever bothering to do the math and figure out when he was conceived. This was due to Real Life Writes the Plot. Chris was always going to be their son, and that reveal had already happened, but Piper's actress got pregnant halfway through the season, while Chris was deliberately keeping Leo away so Leo wouldn't figure out who Chris was and what he was doing. So the writers had to scrabble to get in a one-night Leo-Piper hookup arranged by Chris to explain the pregnancy, and Chris looks like a complete idiot for almost erasing himself from existence.

A rumor says that Chris was originally supposed to be Phoebe and Cole's son from the future, meant to give Phoebe a reason to have hope for her bad luck in romance. It makes sense given his original actions earlier in the season—he had strong connections to demons and moved around in the underworld to access magic that would protect his identity from the Charmed Ones. The pressure was really on to identify whose kid he was after Holly Marie Combs became pregnant though, and it's incredibly fortunate that the series hadn't revealed Chris' origins beforehand for the writers' sake. (It's also worth noting that the writers originally intended to use Wyatt, who was already born by that point, but thought it would be too obvious.)

In one episode, Future Chris' girlfriend Bianca shows up, and runs into her mother at one point.

Jackie: Her dad? How are you her dad? How old were you, twelve?Pete: Jacks  listen. This is Rose. Jackie: Rose? How sick is that? You give my daughter a second hand name? How many are there? Do you call them ALL Rose? Pete: Oh, for God's sake, look! It's the SAME Rose!

River Song, firstintroduced to (and killed off soon after meeting) the Tenth Doctor in 2008, turns out to be the daughter of Eleventh Doctor companions Amy and Rory, introduced in 2010. Her example is among the most extreme on this page  thanks to the Timey-Wimey BallandTime Lord regeneration, she actually spends her entire teenage years growing up alongside her parents as their contemporary friend, even playing a role in getting them together. She also visited her parents' wedding and later married the Really 700 Years Old Doctor herself, making her 20+ something old parents his in-laws.

In "Hide", the Doctor meets a scientist and a psychic investigating a haunting, and discovers the "ghost" to actually be a time traveller stuck in a pocket universe. After they rescue the girl, the Doctor reveals the time traveler to be one of the scientist and psychic's descendants, even though they weren't even technically a couple yet  they had just finally begun to recognize the mutual UST.

Subverted when Clara meets and rescues another time travel pioneer named Orson Pink and, due to his resemblance to her then-love interest Danny Pink, his mention of a time-travelling great-grandparent, and her witnessing of the above example, assumes that he's a descendant of hers and that she and Danny are "supposed" to end up together, leading her to continue a date that was going badly before time travel got involved. While Orson is likely related to Danny in some way, he turns out notto be a direct descendant: Clara's relationship disintegrates as a result of their incompatible lifestyles and her lies about her adventurous double life, and Danny himself dies in a sudden, tragic traffic accident just as she was trying to patch things up.

In The Flash, a girl keeps showing up throughout Season 4. She is eventually revealed to be Nora West-Allen, Barry's and Iris's daughter from the future and her intent is to prevent her father from disappearing in 2024. Unfortunately, she ends up making things worse when she allies herself with Eobard Thawne; the year Barry disappears in is moved ahead to 2019 and Nora herself is Ret Goned for messing up with the timeline.

In Arrow, William, Mia, and Connor are transported by the Monitor from 2040 to 2019, meeting Oliver, Diggle, Rene, Dinah, Curtis, and Laurel. It's a little more awkward for Connor, since Diggle hasn't adopted him yet. But they also tell them that Diggle's biological son, J.J., ends up becoming a villain in the Bad Future and kills Rene's daughter Zoe. William seems to adapt quicker than the others and pretty much takes over his stepmom's role on Team Arrow.

In the final season of Goodnight Sweetheart, Gary (who regularly time-travels back to World War II, and maintains a second life there) is taken aback to meet his Kid In The Present.

Claire Bennet plays this role in a season 3 episode of Heroes, as does Hiro Nakamura.

Wataru becomes one to Otoya in Kamen Rider Kiva when he decides to travel back in time both in-series and in-movie. Ironically, he does so because he's in despair at accidentally killing his love interest Mio, so he tries to convince Otoya and Mayanot to have him. In the end, both convince him to choose to live. Given the strong Generation Xerox Kiva has, Wataru's son from 22 years in the future appears in the finale, along with Kivat the 4th, who gives him the power to become New Kiva.

Kamen Rider Den-O is a natural candidate for this, given its plot. The series proper has Hana, who as the child of Yuto and Airi, is Ryotaro's future niece, which makes all that Ship Tease turn a little sour in retrospect.... The MovieFinal Countdown introduces Kotaro, Ryotaro's grandson, who is also New Den-O.

This may be what happens in the final episode of Kamen Rider Ghost. Ayumu, a mysterious boy seemingly from a dystopian future, armed with knowledge of who Takeru is and what he did as Ghost, appears searching for a powerful object capable of changing the course of history. With the help ofhis successor, Takeru sets the boy's sullen attitude straight and convinces him that the future can be changed if people work together. Ayumu thanks Takeru as he steps back into the portal to his own time; although his words become inaudible at this point, he is very clearly mouthing "otou-san"note dad as he vanishes, though unlike in the other cases on this page, it's never explicitly stated until later in a stage show.

Krypton: General Zod meets with his dead family on their not-yet-exploded planet while time-traveling to kill Brainiac.

Even though the same episode had DNA testing establish that Clark could never have a child with a human woman. Of course, it's not entirely unlikely that an advanced species like the Kryptonians could have devised a way to make such a pairing work.

On Lost, time travel begins playing a role in the fifth season. After being transported back to the 1970s:

Miles interacts with his parents and sees himself as an infant. Miles wishes to have no relationship with his father because he allegedly abandoned Miles and his mother. Through predestination paradox, it is revealed Miles' friend Daniel Faraday was responsible for this: Miles' father didn't abandon his son, he forcibly made them leave the island to survive a catastrophic incident that would happen hours later, having been told of this by Daniel.

Daniel himself believes he can stop said incident by finding his mother, Eloise Hawking, a member of the Others, then having her help him detonate a hydrogen bomb that he told her to bury when he time travelled to 1954. However, when he arrives at camp, she shoots him in the back when he holds up Richard Alpert, and as he dies he tells her he is her son. She is forced to live the rest of her life knowing her son will grow up, go back in time, and be shot dead by her unknowing past self.

And then she sends him to the Island in the first place, knowing too well what's going to happen. It is all really tragic, but she must have really disliked time paradoxes to allow all this to happen.

She didn't "allow" anything to happen. "Whatever happened, happened". As she told Desmond, any attempt to change what is fated will be futile, as it will happen anyway.

A variation occurred in "Vanishing Act". After getting into a minor car accident on December 31, 1949, Trevor McPhee returns home the next morning to find that it is January 1, 1960. He and his wife Theresa - who thought that he abandoned her - have sex before he is sent another ten years into the future. In 1970, he finds that he has a nine-year-old son named Mark who was conceived that night. He meets Mark again as a 19-year-old in 1980 and as a 29-year-old in 1990. By the time of this last encounter, Mark is four years older than his father.

In "Tribunal", Aaron Zgierski travels back in time to 1944 and meets his father Leon, who was then a prisoner in Auschwitz, as a young man. Leon does not realise who Aaron is but, years later, names his son after him. In the same episode, Nicholas Prentice tells Aaron that he is his great-grandson from about 100 years in the future.

Another variation occurred in "Time to Time" when Tom and Angie Palmer from 1969 met their 25-year-old daughter Lorelle Palmer from 1989 and never realised that she was the adult version of their five-year-old.

In "Gettysburg", Corporal Beauregard Larouche, a member of the Army of Northern Virginia who is trying to stay alive during the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, meets his descendant Andy Larouche from 2000 but does not realize his identity.

Power Rangers Ninja Storm - Cam's journey to become Sixth Ranger involves using a magic scroll to travel back in time. He witnesses his parents' first meeting (his mom kicking his dad's ass in front of their entire Ninja School), and "inherits" his morpher from her before returning to the present.

Alexander Rozhenko does this in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Due to having grown up to be a pacifist and diplomat, his perceived weakness led to him nearly being assassinated by political rivals, with Worf Taking the Bullet. He traveled back to convince his younger self to become a warrior as his father had wanted, but when this plan fails, he attempts to kill his younger self to ensure that future never came to be. Worf luckily convinces him that the future is not set in stone and even if he pursues the path of peace, it is something he would be proud of. Interestingly, when Alexander shows up in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as a young adult it's shown that the Bad Future has been thoroughly averted, but this incident isn't even mentioned except in passing.

Two other Star Trek episodes, namely the Deep Space Nine episode "Children of Time" and the Enterprise episode "E2", had a variant of this trope, in which the descendants of the crew (of the Defiant and the NX-01 respectively) ended up in the present due to the ship's imminent travel into the past, with no way back. In both episodes, the time travel eventually gets prevented, but not without paying the high price of the "future" children's existence.

In The Zack Files episode "But I'm Too Young to Be My Dad", Zack is visited by his future 13-year-old son Mack.

Tabletop Games

In the detailed character biographies of Kitsune: Of Foxes and Fools it's stated that Akomachi's daughters Sharmarali and April, grandkits Akira and Cori, and apprentice Aoki all came back in time to see what she was like before her ascension.

Video Games

Trinity from Boktai 3, according to Word of God, is a distant descendant of Django. He does one good thing (Break the seal that trapped Django, whose absence led to the Bad Future to begin with) before comfortably settling into his position as The Load.

Tales of Destiny 2 has Kyle, the protagonist, meeting his parents in the past. Stahn even jokes that he'll name his son after Kyle. He never reveals that he's their son, though.

Interestingly, Beatrice is barely mentioned in Space Quest VI, and Roger is trying to get together with another woman, apparently forgetting the time loop. It's possible, of course, that he simply wants to have a fling with Stellar, while Bea is busy elsewhere. The preview for Space Quest 7 (which was never made) once again has Roger trying to save Beatrice.

In the Ambitions expansion pack for The Sims 3, it is possible to end up with one of these when using the time machine.

InazumaEleven 3: the Ogre features Endou Kanon, a kid from the future who tries to stop an evil organization that tries to get rid of Kanon's great great grandfather, Endou Mamoru, and his Japanese international soccer team.

All over the place in Fire Emblem Awakening. Once Chapter 13 has been cleared and a male and female campaign character reach S support level, the player can recruit their kid in a side chapter. There are a total of 13 future children; at least one of them (Morgan) will be mothered or fathered by the Player Character, while another (Lucina) is automatically recruited without the need for a side chapter. To make things even "funnier", said future kid can end up as the future kid of one of the other 12 future kids if the PC marries one of them, meaning to two characters Morgan is a Grandkid from the Future.

The second generation from Fire Emblem Fates is normally aged up by other means, but Fates contains a DLC chapter which takes place before the start of Awakening. This allows Lissa from Awakening to meet an Ophelia-mothered Kana from Fates, who is her great-granddaughter, along with a few other cases dependent on Awakening pairings.

Petta from the PSP remake of Makai Kingdom is the daughter of Zetta (the Protagonist and self-proclaimed "Most Badass Freakin' Overlord in the Cosmos",) having traveled from the future... Or so she claims. Surprisingly, she is indeed the daughter of Zetta and Salome; the reason she came from the future is because the prophecy that set the game's plot in motion still persists in her era, so she went back in time to prevent it.

Ele of Star Gladiator. She's a cute girl from the future who happens to be the daughter of Hayato and June.

A really complex and Mind Screw-y case of this happens in Zero Time Dilemma. In the D-2 Ending, Sigma and Diana give birth to twin babies after being stranded in the shelter and about to starve to death. In a last ditch effort to offer their kids a life in some timeline, they use the transporter they found that allows them to send a copy of the children through spacetime and back into the past. Those twins' names are Delta, the true identity of this game's Zero, and Phi, the heroine of Virtue's Last Reward and the third member of D-Team.

In Yo-kai Watch 4, Nate and Katie are able to interact with their daughter from 30 years in the future.

Guest From the Future, the seventeenth installment of the Grim Tales series from Elephant Games, hinges on this trope. Anna's future daughter Alice comes back in time to get her mother's help in preventing a disease from wiping out their entire family.

In Narbonic, Dave and Helen's child abuses her parents' Universe-consuming time machine ("We siphon it from universes where they probably don't want to exist as much") to spy on her parents before they got married — and arguably creates a Stable Time Loop by convincing Dave to get back with Helen, a decision without which she wouldn't have been conceived.

Similarly, in Umlaut House, Rhonda goes into the past to settle an argument with Pierce, who follows her to keep her from meddling in the past (as it happens, he shouldn't have bothered).

In Homestuck, Jade's 'penpal' claims to be her future grandson. What this truly means remains to be seen. Parentage isa strangething inHomestuck. We later meet him in Act 6, where it turns out Jade is his grandmother - except it's an Alternate Universe version of Jade. And Jake's counterpart in the original universe was Jade's grandfather... who was also her genetic father. And he's effectively cloned from Jade and her genetic brother, so his existence and parentage tells us nothing about Jade's future love life.

Time Police officer Philia from GastroPhobia turns out to be this for Phobia and Klepto. When they break up and her father starts getting into a Ship Tease with his childhood friend Mania, she agonizes over the possible Time Paradox. Fellow time traveler Lord Nightsorrow decides to take Klepto's sperm cells with Phobia's egg cells, incubate them with magic, and allow the child to be adopted by Mania, which everyone decides to accept.

The space arc has a variation: Morgan has been brought forward in time to serve as Merlin's apprentice. While there, she and Arthur conceive a child, not realizing that they're half-siblings. When Merlin finds out, he returns Morgan to the past and she gives birth to Mordred... who in the present day is already serving aboard the Excalibur and doesn't know any of this. Also, Morgan met Squire Mordred while on the Excalibur, and was so impressed by his ambition, she named her son after him.

A second, more straightforward example: Nimue, also a time traveler, brings Galahad from the future to meet Lancelot.

In the comic Transypoo! Acey's daughter from the future, Jo Smit, goes back in time, seemingly, to provide futuristic armor to the main cast, and possibly just to have fun.

All known members of TACT in L's Empire are kids of members of the present cast. Hector is Rib and Bow's son, Pix is Dark Star and Phala's son and Rosa is Luigi and Daisy's daughter. Subverted in Rosa's case. By the time she traveled back to the present, Daisy was already pregnant with her. And we don't find out that Dark Star and Phala are Pix's parents until after he's born.

In thisThe Non-Adventures of Wonderella comic strip, Dana's evil daughter comes from the future to kill Dana out of revenge for Dana always dismissing her and never letting her become Wonderella. Dana negates her daughter's entire existence by deciding to go back on birth control. (Of course, as Bianca points out, killing Dana now would have negated her existence anyway, but hey, kids are stupid.)

Brady "Honey" Smith from Sailor Sun is a parody of this trope, and specifically Chibi-Usa.

In the Star vs. the Forces of Evil work Ship War AU, two kids from alternate futures arrive. Elizabeth, the daughter of Marco and Star, and Jam, the son of Marco and Jackie. They attempt to protect their parents and fight each other over getting their respective parents to come together, while on a mission to fix their timelines.

Web Original

Cassandra Cain from Cass Cult is on fairly good terms with the Legion of Cass Daughters, which includes her daughters from every possible timeline.

In Red Panda Adventures, the Red Squirrel reveals in her first appearance that Kit Baxter, the Flying Squirrel, was her great-great-grandmother. It's not until the heroes' wedding day that she also confirms that the Red Panda was her great-great-grandfather, since she didn't want to affect the timeline by interfering in the Will They or Won't They? and the Red Panda himself was too polite to ask. When the Red Panda first sees the Red Squirrel's face, he's astonished by her resemblance to Kit. When Kit first sees her face, she's astonished at the Red Squirrel's resemblance to the Red Panda.

In We Are Our Avatars, a portal created by Damara Megido enabled the future kids to visit the past versions of their parents.

Western Animation

Jake becomes this in one episode of American Dragon: Jake Long when he travels back to 1986 and accidentally causes his parents to split up. He then has to strive to get them back together in order to ensure his own birth.

In one episode, some villains from the future travel to the present to assist the present villains. One of them addresses Dr. Blight as her ancestor. Dr. Blight says that can't be possible because she doesn't have any children and doesn't plan on having any. The woman glances significantly between Blight and Looten Plunder and chuckles, saying she will. Blight and Plunder get nervous and disgusted. It becomes a moot point because the changes done to the timeline end up causing the future villains to suffer a Ret-Gone.

In the same episode, we meet a group of future Planeteers from another timeline who are apparently descendants of the current Planeteers. Wheeler goes as far as suggesting the future Fire and Wind Planetees could be his and Linka's descendants together, before she laughingly shoots him down.

In a different episode, Dr. Blight's daughter Betsi comes to the present. To everybody's shock, she is a good guy.

Danny himself does this when he travels back in time and prevents the accident that gave Vlad ghost powers. His mother ends up marrying Vlad instead, and they have no children. Danny has to convince her to help him fix things so he can go back to his own timeline.

In the DuckTales (2017) episode "Last Christmas", Dewey ends up traveling back in time and meeting young versions of his mother Della and Uncle Donald. While he tries to hide his identity, Della figures out pretty quickly that he's a relative from the future, with Donald being nonplussed at the notion, both noting that they're the Duck family. They refuse to learn Dewey's exact relation to them so they don't create a time paradox, but it is hinted that Della suspects that he might be her future son, while Donald figures out who "Bluey" was in the intermediate years.

Warhawk is Green Lantern (John Stewart) and Hawkgirl's Kid From The Future — which came as a surprise because they had stopped dating quite some time before traveling to the future and running into him. This actually causes John to attempt a Screw Destiny by not getting back together with Hawkgirl over the course of the series just so he doesn't feel pressured to do so just by Warhawk's existence. Word of God says that's okay, given that Warhawk is still only in his twenties by the Beyond time period, which is still a good forty years off.

Technically there is two such cases in that episode, as a later episode tells us that Terry McGinnis (Batman II) is Batman's biological son created by Amanda Waller.

In the Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures episode "Pac To The Future", Pac-Man travels through time to when he was still a baby, and throughout the episode he has to keep his identity a secret from Pac-Man Sr. and Ms. Pac-Man while his friends work to bring him back to the present.

In Peter Pan & the Pirates, Peter travels to the future and brings a young girl named Jane to Neverland in order to make her a new Lost Boy. It's soon revealed that Jane is the daughter of an adult Wendy, and that she grew up on Wendy's stories of Neverland.

Played with on Phineas and Ferb, where they go to the future and meet their sister Candace's kids. We don't actually find out much about Phineas and Ferb themselves, including if either of them has children. Though it is implied that oneof them marries Isabella. In a few episodes, Candace mentions her dreams of one day marrying her crush, Jeremy, and having two children named Xavier and Amanda. Sure enough, those are two of the three future children, and while their father isn't revealed, Xavier looks an awful lot like Jeremy.

In one Halloween Episode of The Simpsons, Bart travels back in time and meets Homer in high school, introducing himself as "the unwanted son from the future who kills all your fun." Homer starts strangling him at the very moment he first meets Marge, and she is so disgusted that she never marries him, and Bart becomes the son of Marge and Artie Ziff.

In Time Warp Trio, the present-day trio of Joe, Sam and Fred sometimes cross paths with their great-granddaughters from a hundred years in the future (Jodie, Samantha and Freddi) when going on their adventures.

Bart Allen/Impulse in Young Justice is Barry Allen/The Flash's grandson from the future. Coincidentally this occurred mere hours after Iris found out she was pregnant; she had not even had a chance to tell Barry yet. And she didn't realize she was having twins.

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Sailor Moon (1992)

Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask discover that Chibi-Usa is their future daughter.